Danbury’s Crime Rate Has Increased Over the Past Year

According to Danbury Police, the crime rate in the city increased during the last eleven months of 2018 for the first time in a while, due mostly to car theft and burglaries.

Each month, the Danbury Police release a crime report covering eight major crime categories including homicide, rape, robbery, assault, burglary, theft, motor vehicle theft and arson. According to newstimes.com, over the past three years the major crime rate in Danbury had been down by double digits, now the latest report from Danbury Police shows the crime rate up almost six percent over the last 11 months compared to the same period in 2017.

The main reason for the higher crime numbers is a 59 percent increase in auto theft in the city. The numbers for burglary, and property crimes were up slightly but no where near the number for auto theft.

Mayor Mark Boughton called the number an anomaly, and he had this to say to newstimes.com:

I wouldn’t call one set of numbers a trend. If a 5 percent increase was something we were seeing year after year, maybe that would be a trend, but Danbury continues to be a very safe city.

We spoke to Danbury Police Chief, Patrick Ridenhour, and he put the crime number increase in better perspective:

Most of these elevated numbers came from the first half of 2018. The property crimes, crimes of opportunity, which includes unlocked doors, valuables in plain sight, vehicles left running while people went into stores or unlocked vehicles. The vehicle thefts seem to be an issue statewide, but anytime we see any type of increase we try to drill down to see if there's anything we can be doing differently and educate the public in how to do some target hardening to keep themselves from being a victim. This being said, the numbers in the second half of last year seem more encouraging.

Although these statistics have been released by the Danbury Police Department, the data is still considered unofficial until it's reported to the state and processed.